You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel reading for Christmas is here.
Advent IV is past and gone – onward to Christmas! The baking and decorating and wrapping are underway. Soon and very soon…
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born…
It gets real for me when I set up the crèche. Each year, I place the figures the same way in the stable, the angels at the same angles on the gold lame cloth that represents the glory of the Lord (that “shone round about them…”). The wise men are still far off on the top shelf of the bookcase, the shepherds abiding in the fields. Mary’s wicker trunk (part of a long-ago gift basket) sits behind her; the stable cat is at the base of the hayloft – and the toy velociraptor some child once left at my house looks down on the scene from the loft (a reminder of ever-present danger perhaps? Or rebirth?).
And there they are, Joseph standing with a staff, Mary kneeling, gazing at an empty manger, waiting… waiting… waiting for the moment when it all changes, when new life brings an end to the old. Mary and Joseph would never be able to go back to what they’d known. No new parents can – and these two were going to face more change than most.
What are you waiting for in your life this week? Perhaps it’s related to Christmas, perhaps not.
What new life are you praying for?
And what are you hoping will never go away?
New life is always coming at us, sometimes taking up the space of something we rather liked, or had grown comfortable with. Is there something yearning to take up space in your life, space you’re willing to create by letting something else go?
On Christmas Eve, when I get home from church (this year around 1:30 am, I'm told…), I will fetch the baby out of that little wicker trunk and place him in the manger. Jesus always shows up, eventually. Sometimes we just have to let him out of our baggage…
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Christmas Day. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Those who have grown up with the Christian tradition have long since accepted the implausible impossibles at the heart of our Christmas story. We either accept them as “gospel truth,” or as narratives given authority by centuries of holy use, or at least as a great story. Do we even blink anymore at hearing that a young girl might become pregnant “by the Holy Spirit,” and be supported by a man who had every reason to quit her but stayed because an angel told him to?
It has become so ingrained as “that’s how the story goes,” it can be hard to experience the wonder and fear such events might evoke. A few years ago I was inspired by a crazy “What if….” What if God had decided that Joseph would bear the son of God? I mean, if we’re talking about the God for whom nothing is impossible, why not go there? I wrote this up as a somewhat playful short sermon drama that I’ve only once dared to have performed in church; I wanted to ratchet up the sense of dislocation this story should elicit in us.
Joseph and Mary experienced a radical change of plans. Their future looked all set – they were engaged, would soon be married; Joseph had a good living as a builder, Mary was young and healthy. The plan looked good.
Except God had a different plan – a way, way bigger plan. A plan that required an unbelievable amount of faith, to believe in something that could not possibly be proven in any empirical way. A plan that demanded an inconceivable amount of courage, to defend a “conceiving” that looked an awful lot like sin and betrayal. A plan that would bring some joy, yes, and also a great deal of heartache and uncertainty.- What plans of yours have been disrupted – by God, or by the choices of others, or by circumstances beyond your control? Have you grieved those lost plans? It’s worth naming them, if only to better let them go.
- How creative and resilient were you in adapting to the new circumstances? Have you adjusted yet?
- What is your prayer in response to plan changes?
- Where do you sense the Holy Spirit’s involvement in your life?
- Can you glimpse a bigger plan in what has happened? Name it.
Looking back, sometimes we can see blessing in what came about instead of our plans. In It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey discovers that his continually laying aside his life plans made him not a failure, but a blessing to countless people, including himself. It is considered a holiday film because of its Christmas climax – but it also echoes the challenges facing Mary and Joseph in our nativity story.
I surely hope they were blessed by the new trajectory of their lives as they embraced God’s plan. I firmly believe that the world has been blessed by them. I have been. Here's how their conversation with the angel might have gone...
GABRIEL: Look, I know this is not what you were expecting. And I can’t promise that it’s all going to be easy from here on out. This plan of God’s – it’s complicated, and it’s not all happy endings along the way… though hang on for the real ending. That’s a doozy. You’re going to face adversity and hardship and challenge—
JOSEPH: Keep going, pal – you’re really selling it!
GABRIEL: But you’ll also find you’re right at the heart of God’s greatest gift to the world. God is all-powerful, yet God cannot set this story in motion without both of you. It’s going to take tremendous faith, but I assure you, it’s a heck of a story.
MARY: Do we have a choice? Feels like this pregnancy is already well underway.
GABRIEL: You have a choice in how you respond… Will you walk into the story? Will you exercise your faith? Will you hold each other when one of you starts to doubt? Will you let love be your answer?
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
“When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him…”
Joseph was a paragon of virtue, it would appear, a man who did what God commanded even when it exposed him to shame and ridicule – and ultimately danger, once the implications of being step-father to God’s son became apparent. Yet Joseph excelled at obeying.
I’m not fond of the word “obey.” There is a hymn I've never liked, for I believe it captures all the legalistic religiosity I spend much energy countering:
“Trust and obey, for there’s no other way /
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
“Yes, there is!” I want to shout. “There is the way of grace and acceptance and doing good on the power of the Spirit, not on our own!” As one whose faith came alive under a steady stream of preaching about the grace of God, and who is keenly aware of the limits of willpower, I prefer to stress the unconditional love of God that we receive despite our frequent failure to obey. Obedience is so closely linked in my mind to legalism, I react negatively, despite my general compliance.
And yet, here is Joseph, reminding me of the power that can be unleashed when we simply obey. Joseph’s obedience may have been a product of a self-disciplined nature. Or maybe it resulted from the very clear and powerful, supernatural encounter he had in his dream with an angel of the Lord – reinforced, no doubt, by Mary’s tale of her own angelic encounter. We might find ourselves more inclined toward obeying and following God's guidance as we get more in touch with our own divine encounters. They may not be as dramatic as Joseph’s and Mary's, but they are real.
So... when did you last sense the Spirit of God nudging you or instructing you in some way? When did you last sense the presence of God around you or see evidence of God’s handiwork in your life or in the world?
If you can’t think of anything… there might be a prayer in that, asking God to help you become more aware, or to open your own heart a little wider to what is happening in the unseen realm of spirit.
It is hard to trust, let alone obey, a total stranger. If we keep God at arm’s length or at a polite distance, we are less able to discern the leaps of faith we are invited to take. God may never ask us to take a leap like Joseph did… Then again, God does invite us, like Joseph, to nurture the Christ-life in ourselves and in others, every day of the year.
We don’t have to escort a pregnant woman to Bethlehem… we just have to get ourselves there, and trust God to walk with us no matter what comes.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Matthew the Gospel writer is big on linking events he is telling about to things foretold by Hebrew prophets. After all, he was writing the Good News for a predominantly Jewish audience, many of whom needed convincing that this Jesus movement was in line with received revelation.
So, after he tells us about Joseph’s dream, in which an angel instructs Joseph to go forward with his marriage to Mary, “for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit,” Matthew adds, “All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’”
Emmanu-el. That’s one big claim in one big name: God with us. Not "God far away," not "God too holy to be approached" – God with us. That’s the heart of our whole deal as Christians. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us...” (John 1:14)
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and God will dwell with them.’” (Revelation 21:3)
It is a radical thing to say God is with us. It means we can’t say we’ve been abandoned, no matter how alone we might feel. It means we can’t place God at an unreachable distance from ourselves or our world. In Christ, we have been granted entrée to the throne of God, “For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:17)
Does it change our perception on the challenges we face in life, knowing that God is with us? Think about the things you feel are insurmountable, or the places you feel powerless. Now bring those up in prayer, in the context of God’s “with-us-ness.” How does it feel to pray to God with you? To pray with God, not to God. Too often we pray to God-far-away. Jesus is God-with-us.
Can we start to take advantage of the proximity and access that are ours as members of the household of God and citizens of the realm of God? Maybe play with places in your imagination where you might go to talk with Jesus in prayer. “The Word is very near you – on your lips and in your heart,” Paul tells us in Romans 10:8, quoting Deuteronomy. What's the good of all this access if we don't use it?
Emmanu-el has drawn near to us in love.
God is with us, always.
We can go away; God will not.
How will you live today, owning that truth deep in your being? How will you share that gift?
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
One of my favorite “faith movies” of all time is Field of Dreams. I saw it 11 times in a year – in theatres. It tells the story of an Iowa farmer named Ray Kinsella who hears a whispered voice telling him to plow under a fruitful field of corn and build a ballpark. This is economic and agricultural madness, and yet he becomes convinced of the voice’s reality. Equally nutty instructions follow, leading to the impossible reality that Babe Ruth, Shoeless Joe Jackson and other now-dead baseball greats of yore start coming through the corn to play on the field and interact with Ray and his family.
Ray’s wife supports him following these instructions – but it’s hard. Is he losing his mind? At a crucial point, when she’s ready to give up, they both have the same dream one night, giving them the confirmation they need to stay on this seemingly insane course and follow where it leads.
Joseph of Nazareth had a LOT of dreams. Like his namesake, the Joseph of the woven cloak and jealous brothers, the New Testament Joseph received regular angelic communications through his dreams. Unlike the Joseph of Torah, however, whose dreams were symbolic and required interpretation, Joseph of Nazareth gets clear instructions, “Do this,” “Go there,” “Don’t go there,” “Okay, it’s safe now…”
In Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth, the angels just show up directly to people like Zechariah, Mary, the shepherds, unmediated by REM sleep and human processes. They’re just there – “Look out! Be not afraid!” The writer of Matthew either heard different stories, or maybe thought Luke was embellishing things, for in his telling the angels speak only through dreams. And in Matthew, it is Joseph who receives the divine message that in Luke is delivered to Mary.
After Joseph learns of Mary’s premature pregnancy, and resolves to divorce her quietly, “…an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
God gave Joseph the information he needed to walk in faith. Have you ever had a “God dream?” What message did you discern? Did you act on it?
In what ways do you sense the Holy Spirit communicates with you? In prayer directly? Through events and coincidences? By a strong sense or urge to do or say something that bears good fruit? Through meditating on the Word of God? I have a friend who gets pop song lyrics in her head – always with a message that suggests answers or guidance.
I believe the Holy One is often messaging us. As we tune our receivers, we begin to discern those messages more often. And when we do, we check that our interpretation is not contrary to what we read in Scripture. We can also seek confirmation from others in our community of faith. If the Spirit suggests you do something radical, the Spirit will give someone else confirmation for you.
In Field of Dreams, as in our nativity story, the instructions in dreams lead, ultimately, to love, to reunion and reconciliation and restoration. Which is where all God dreams ultimately lead… Joseph’s, and mine, and yours.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Ah, at last we get to the story, the story we tell and re-tell about the angels and the shepherds and the sweet young woman great with child and... Oh, wait, not quite that story. Angels, yes, but only in dreams. No shepherds or inn-keepers in Matthew’s pageant. In fact, he barely works Mary in, naming her only as Jesus’ mother and Joseph’s betrothed. This is Joseph’s story, as Matthew tells it: Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
Interestingly, Matthew does not refer to Joseph as Jesus’ father – in fact, he tips the “messianic secret” in the first line. Mary is introduced as mother and fiancée, but all the action here is with Joseph – his challenges, his choices.
We are told he is a righteous man, and we can see how gentle is his response to the news of Mary’s pregnancy, intending to dissolve the betrothal in quiet so as to protect her from legal liability as an adulteress. Then an angel intervenes in a dream, giving him the rundown that, in Luke, Mary hears directly from the angel Gabriel.
And Joseph decides to obey this dream message, despite his own misgivings and the likely derision of the people close to him. He does so honorably, and endures Mary’s "confinement" without marital gratification – all the while preparing to welcome and raise a first-born whom he knows is not his biological child. In today’s idiom we might say, “Joseph totally steps up, dude.” (Randy Travis tells his story – and The Whole Story – in Raise Him Up.)
Who in your life has stepped up for you, above and beyond their “duty?” Relatives, teachers, colleagues, friends…. Let your gratitude fill you – and if they’re still around to be thanked, thank them again.
Who or what you are being called to nurture into strong, healthy growth? Who are you helping to “raise up?” What are you helping to build? Remember this is God’s work, work God invites us to participate in. The results are not up to us, but sometimes the work won't happen if we don't agree to do it.
God asked Joseph to participate in a critical role in the plan of salvation that we claim as Christians. It was not an easy “yes,” any easier than Mary’s was. But Joseph said yes – and so helped to raise us up in the Life of God.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's reading from the Hebrew Bible is here.
We are on a journey in this life – that’s a truth, if trite. We are ever on the move away from or toward home. Isaiah, in his prophecy about the return of Israel’s exiles to their homeland, writes of a royal highway on which no one, not even a fool, can get lost: "A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way…no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray."
For a people separated from their homeland, these were words of deep promise and hope – "Say to those who are of a fearful heart, 'Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.'"
In our world right now an unprecedented number of people are exiled from their homelands – over 122.6 million forcibly displaced, according to the World Bank. This may not be our literal experience, yet each of has some areas in which we feel far from what we want, or who we love, or from the kind of peace and wholeness we crave. That highway is there for us too – and it leads to healing.
"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy."
In the season of Advent we are invited to get in touch with what it is we yearn for; what – or who – we are waiting for. What is that for you? How do you fill in the blank, “When I have….,” or “When I am…, then I’ll be okay?” Where do you want to get that you are not already?
The Good News is that this highway is already accessible to us, to bring us closer to our own hearts, and to the heart of the God who awaits us at the end of every road we travel. It is a highway for those who have been redeemed, set free, by the love of Jesus Christ for humankind. And it sounds like a mighty fun road, with joy and laughter –
"And the redeemed of the LORD shall return,
and come to Zion with singing;
and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."
What we celebrate in this season, what we anticipate, is that day when sorrow and sighing are gone for good. Even now we glimpse that day in moments, in bursts – it is coming; it is here; it is ahead on that royal road, that highway to heaven, right here on earth.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's reading from the Hebrew bible is here.
For the rest of the week, I’d like to turn to the portion of Hebrew scripture appointed for Sunday – a beautiful prophecy of restoration and hope from Isaiah 35. It speaks of the day when the travails of the exiles are lifted and they travel once again to their homeland. In the poetry of the prophet, the land itself joins in celebration:
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing.
Deserts are fascinating places – often rich with plants and trees, vegetation that thrives under challenging conditions – wind, sun, drought. Some seasons in our lives are like that. Sometimes one area feels arid while others seem more productive. One fruit of spiritual growth is knowing we can thrive under conditions that are less than ideal as well as during times of plenty.- What feels dry in your life at the moment?
- What pains you these days? What are you anxious about?
- What are you anxious about?
- What do you yearn for that feels far off?
- What are you thirsty for?
Name those things – lay them before the Lord in your prayer.
Much of what we do in prayer is become aware of what’s going on within us, so we can invite God’s Spirit into those places. Another name for God’s Spirit is the River of Life – coursing through us, splashing into the thirsty spaces, cleansing, healing, refreshing, renewing, carrying away all the debris that holds us back from really living the life God has given us to live. Here is a promise:
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,
the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
Whatever in your life has become dry or brittle can be renewed. Ask for water - as the Spirit comes, streams of living water will break forth in you.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Advent introduces us to John the Baptist – who he was, why he was the way he was, what impact he had. Some people in his day thought he was the Messiah, or an incarnation of the prophet Elijah – until Herod imprisoned and later had him executed at the whim of his step-daughter. John truly was a holy man, and Jesus speaks of him as such: “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist.”
And then he says something even more extraordinary: “…yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
What was that about mountains being brought low and valleys lifted up; the “mighty cast down from their thrones” and the lowly being exalted? Here is Jesus, articulating again that equalizing quality of the Realm of God – that equalizing which was so challenging to people in his own day, and has remained so in the thousands of years since.
To say that “the first will be last, and the last first,” that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to “little children,” that the least “important” member of the household of God is greater than a saint like John – that’s radical. That’s a challenge to those who feel themselves to be important, and it’s an invitation to those who do not.
Can you imagine yourself greater than a prophet like John the Baptist? Can you imagine yourself as valuable, as worthy of honor? Because Jesus says that is true – that those who consider themselves “in the kingdom of heaven” are that valuable, that worthy, that remarkable, that beloved.
My spiritual suggestion for today is to simply sit with that idea, of being that important in the realm of God. No one is more important than you. Try that on. How does it make you sit? Walk? Talk? Think?
Write down some of the reasons why you are so valuable in God’s eyes. We need to know that, to claim it, not so we can become big-headed, but so we can give God the glory. That’s what we’re here for – to glorify God in how we live and give.
Of course it’s not a popularity contest or a competition. My knowing myself to be that worthy doesn’t diminish the importance of John the Baptist – he’s the one who said, as Jesus’ ministry grew more public, “He must increase; I must decrease.”
I can just imagine the smile on John’s face growing bigger the more we recognize our worthiness in the eyes of God. I can imagine him looking at Jesus and nodding. “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere…”
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
What do you think a holy man or woman should look like? What are the markers of "success" for spiritual leaders? This is what Jesus asks the crowds about how they viewed John the Baptist. "What did you go out there to the desert to look at? Were you just spiritual tourists gawking at the latest guru? Did you think you were going to see a smooth-talking, well-dressed leader, get a little charge, and leave your life unchanged?"
Advent is a good time to examine our spiritual motivations, what is it we truly yearn for, why we engage or disengage from spiritual community. It is easy to become disenchanted with church and clergy, to expect little so we’re not disappointed – or to expect too much. Today, let's do a little inventory. When we can name our expectations, we can better manage them.- What are your expectations of your spiritual community?
- When you are disappointed or disaffected, what causes it?
- Do you communicate that, distance yourself, or engage more? Nothing is worse than walking without talking.
- What are your expectations of your spiritual leaders?
- In what ways do they bless you? How do they disappoint?
As you name these truths, ask how you want to respond. One way, I hope, is by praying regularly for your community and your clergy - they are a part of you, and you of them.
In some ways, the role of spiritual leaders can be described in the words Jesus used about John, "This is the one about whom it is written, 'See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.'"
Clergy can be messengers of God's Word, God's love, God's call and invitation. At our best, we help to prepare your spiritual way, and help you walk it, without blocking your path. The more clarity you have about how you want to grow in faith, the better your leaders can help prepare the way. And whatever that “way” looks like, it should lead to Jesus.
The more you grow Christ-ward, the more you can help your pastors walk the way of truth and grace – and then our congregations truly become spiritual communities.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Last week we met John the Baptist in his prime, the vigorous prophet at the Jordan, calling people to repentance, focused and forceful. What a long way from there to where we find him this week, years later, languishing in Herod’s dungeon for the crime of having condemned Herod’s marriage to his sister-in-law. Speaking truth to power can get you burned.
Herod likes having him there – we are told he enjoyed theological conversations with John – but John is not free. And captivity can weaken even the strongest of people. Here we glimpse John in despair, perhaps wondering if he got it wrong. Among the most poignant words in the Gospels are: When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another? That’s a question John asks for all of us at one time or another, when suddenly we’re not sure, when too much time has passed without a sign of God’s power at work, when our prayers don’t seem to have been answered, or the walls have fallen in somewhere. Many may be asking it these days. "Where are you, Jesus? You coming?"
Jesus’ response is to point not to himself, but to his works, to the fruit of his ministry: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.”
When our faith dims and our hope weakens, we can remind ourselves of the goodness of God which we have tasted. We can remind each other of answered prayers and amazing “coincidences” that led to even more amazing outcomes. We can sharpen our awareness of divine activity around us. We can focus our vision to see the Spirit at work in other people – often easier than seeing God's hand in our own lives.
This week, keep watch: where are you catching glimpses of God-Life, of the Spirit’s power, of Jesus’ presence? Write them down. Remind yourself. Remind a friend.
We all have moments like John's, even without the suffering he endured. And we all know people asking that question. Jesus answers us as well: "Go and tell what you hear and see."
I pray you will hear and see amazing things today, this week, and that you get really good at telling. For God is still doing amazing things in and through and around us, and there are a lot of people in captivity waiting to hear that Good News.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
John the Baptist drew a lot of attention – ordinary people who wanted the spiritual experience he offered, and authorities investigating whether or not he was someone they should worry about. But he knew he was not the main attraction, only an advance man for a much bigger show: "I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
Water and fire – two elements that cannot dwell together, except in a Christian. John’s baptism was a way for people to enact repentance, to experience the water of cleansing. But the fire that Jesus brings, John said, is another force altogether, one that will do more than warm us: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
Unquenchable fire does not sound good. I don't like fire, unless it’s on a candle, in a hearth or cooking something. The unquenchable fire is one image of eternal damnation.
But fire is also one of our symbols for the power of the Holy Spirit. Our life in Christ begins with water, the transforming water of baptism by which we are made one with Christ and members of God’s family. And then God’s life is released in us as we are baptized with the fire of the Holy Spirit. That’s where we get the power by which God works transformation through us. We need water and fire.
I once heard a story from someone who had visited Pentecostal Christians in Indonesia. He was at a prayer service that was about the most intense he’d ever witnessed. A woman was leading the prayer, and she was calling down the Spirit upon them, praying fervently, passionately, inviting God to make himself known in power, calling down Holy Spirit fire. This prayer went on for quite a while, and then suddenly the woman went quiet and a silence descended upon the group for three, four, five minutes.
And then the woman spoke: “Fire is now.” And they were all filled with heat, like they were burning, but it didn’t hurt. Manifestations of the Spirit began to be seen and heard, and many were healed. “Fire is now."
If we want to open ourselves to a deeper experience of God’s love and power, we don’t stop with water – we move on to fire. Are you willing to ask God for a greater filling of Holy Spirit? There may be parts of your life you don’t want to see scorched - can you offer God access anyway? Are they keeping you from expanding your capacity for God-life, or do they help you make a way?
Fire is now. What happens if we let it burn in us?
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
John the Baptizer was scathing toward “good people” who wear their religion on their sleeves but leave their hearts and behaviors untouched. Where would he place us? Need we fear God's judgment? Our culture says so; even Santa Claus, the legend most associated with gift-giving, is depicted as being the most judgmental:
He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice / Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice / Santa Claus is coming to town.
“Good” people can do bad things; can “bad” people do good? Is there such thing as a good or a bad person? Jesus once said that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree good fruit. Judgment seems based on the fruit our lives bear.
John the Baptizer was making his audience aware of that judgment… and he wasn’t gentle: “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
I give thanks for the promise that, as members of God’s household united with Christ, it is his deeds by which we will ultimately be judged (whew!). Yet Jesus also spoke of a judgment and a sorting. So let’s do another inventory today – let’s look at the fruit we bear, the outward evidence of our life, the good and not-so-good. (Get out the journal...)- What is the fruit of your relationships? Name some.
- What is the fruit of your work life? Name some.
- Your recreational life? Your financial life?
- Your engagement in activities that help people in need?
- What is the fruit of your spiritual life – what are the outward manifestations of your faith and prayer?
Are you a healthy tree, emotionally, physically, spiritually? Is any pruning or fertilizing needed? How might you become more fruitful?
Whether we’re singing, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” or “When the Man Comes Around,” a Johnny Cash song based on Revelation with strong Advent themes (and not a whole lot of grace), I thank God for the greatest gift – freedom from the ax and the fire. God is an arborist extraordinaire, who tends the trees we are and makes us trees of love. In fact, today let's give Bono and B.B. King the last word - they say it all in "When Love Comes to Town."
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
When we are seeking reconciliation with God or another person, “I’m sorry” is where we start; making it stick is much harder. I can imagine the sneer on John the Baptist’s face as he sees the professional religious folks coming to be baptized by him: But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance.”
Translation: "Who warned you to get your act together? Stop resting on your laurels as 'keepers of the law,' as inheritors of the promises given to your ancestors. What changes are we going to see in your lives?"
What does, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance” mean? That it’s easy to say “I’m sorry,” and a lot harder to make the kinds of changes that render our “I’m sorry’s” unnecessary. John didn’t want people undergoing his baptism for show – he wanted them to take a serious look at themselves and recognize the ways and times in which their behavior or attitudes damaged other people. In our times this might be analogous to folks who recite land acknowledgements at the beginning of events, but never examine the ways our privileges and opportunities come at a cost to our first nations peoples, or what we might to do extend those privileges to those historically denied them.
The call to repent and amend our lives is ever before us. One way to meet it is to undertake an inventory of confession, to get below the surface to the more stubborn patterns of sinfulness that persist in us. Here is a simple one you might try – and write down your answers:- When did I last hurt someone I love? What did I do or say? Why did that happen – what “hooked” me?
- When did I last hurt people who are culturally different from me? Why did that happen?
- When did I last hurt myself in some way? (Include food and self-criticism…) How did that come about?
- When did I last hurt the creation around me in some way, nature, animals. Why did that happen?
- When did I last hurt God – by ignoring or avoiding or defying? What happened?
For each thing you list, offer your regret and think about what would have to change in you to avoid doing that again. What spiritual practices and messages do you need to build into your life to bear better fruit? Invite the Holy Spirit into each one of those areas and ask God to release more life and love in you.
When our repentance is genuine, we’re more inclined to move into fruitful patterns of being and relating. And as we bear the fruit of repentance, the people around us will be sweetened with God’s love.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
John the Baptist was a profoundly counter-cultural figure out there in the desert, but something about his message commanded attention. Matthew tells us, "Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan...”
His message was simple: repent and get ready – something is up. God is on the move: John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: `Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'"
Even in his day John was linked with Isaiah’s prediction that a prophet would arise out in the wilderness crying, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” That prophecy says, “Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Making space for the life of God breaking into our lives means building a highway for Christ to travel, a straight and level road in the desert of this world. This “leveling,” the valleys being lifted and mountains brought low, the rough and rugged ground becoming plains, is a metaphor which has economic, political, even emotional dimensions.
When we start looking for peaks and valleys, highs and lows, we can see them everywhere: in our environment, in toxic slag heaps and crater-filled mining areas; in our economy, in the income gap between rich and poor, widening at an alarming rate in our times – for individuals and for countries. We can find disparity in our own moods, as we become hostage to pressure and stress from without and within. There is an equalizing element to this spiritual work, as we make space for the life of God, the love of God, the justice of God.
As you survey the world and your own life, what hills might be brought low and what vacancies filled in? A simpler way to ask that might be:- What do you have too much of in your life (think spiritually and emotionally as well as materially…)?
- What do you not have enough of? What feels empty in you that needs to be filled?
If we can answer those two questions, we have some prayer work laid out for the season of Advent, as we keep praying into those “too-much-es,” and “not-enoughs.” Why is the “too-much-ness” there? Has the deficiency always existed? Is there an external, justice dimension to our personal issues?
Christ has come, Christ is coming, Christ will come again. How might we make a level road for him to walk - into our world, into our hearts?
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
